Chief Executive Officer and Director
Francis Kombe is a Public Health, Community Engagement, Capacity Building, Bioethics and Research Integrity practitioner. He has a wealth of experience working in international health research institutions, where he has held various leadership positions.
Kombe holds a Master of Social Science in Health Research Ethics from the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), South Africa; Master of Public Health and Postgraduate Diploma in Public Health from London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine-UK (LSHTM). He is currently pursuing a Wellcome Trust funded PhD at UKZN, with a focus on Research Integrity.
Before joining EthiXPERT, Kombe worked as the project lead consultant for the COHRED’S project that aims to build research ethics review capacities in Africa, RHInnO Ethics Africa; and was a training coordinator at the KWTRP where he was involved in the strategic development and planning of health research fieldworkers in the biggest international biomedical research centre in Kenya.
He is a founding and steering committee member of the African Research Integrity Network (ARIN) and chairs the Ethics, Community Engagement and Patients Advocacy and Support (ECEPAS) Working Group under The Global Emerging Pathogens Treatment Consortium (GET). He is a programme committee member of the 7th World Conference on Research Integrity, a member of the Pwani University Research Ethics Committee and an expert committee member of the African Academy of Sciences’ Data And Biospecimen Governance Committee
Kombe is also a UNESCO appointed Member of the International Forum of Teachers of Bioethics and the 2015 Pillars of PRIM&R Award winner (http://blog.primr.org/meet-2014-15-pillars-of-prim-award/). He has published widely in the field of community engagement, performance management of health research fieldworkers, research integrity, fair study benefits and informed consent, among others.